London Walks

Hampstead. The pond in the woods. Two white swans. The poet. The loss. The grief. The remembering. The beauty. The transfiguring. David takes you there. Transcript: London Calling. David here. This is the London Walks Daily Podcast for August 17th 2020. Hampstead Heath has about two dozen ponds. My favourite pond is the Vale of Health Pond. The Vale of Health is the village within a village, the v...

London's fingerprints are all over Shakespeare's plays. David – who lectured on Shakespeare at uni for 33 years – "guides" us through some of that territory.

Over the years David has identified a dozen or so "keys" that help to unlock this most secretive of western cities. This podcast is about the primus inter pares "key" – London names, placenames. David "unlocks" the name Kensington, which in his estimation, may well be the best, the most perfect, the most wonderfully appropriate London placename of them all.

And you're looking out over the ocean, the ocean of London... widows' walks, windmills and water. That's Hampstead.  

This one's a three-parter. 1. Aperitif: A London history snippet: London authorities – they've always been good at putting lipstick on a pig. 2. Starter: David's identified 16 keys that help to "unlock" London, the most secretive of Western cities. Here's one of them. 3. Main course: The street (it's one of the two finest Queen Anne streets in London); the house (it's got a good claim to being the...

In this London Walks podcast: A correction/addition to a point made in yesterday's podcast Two more particulars about information sources for London Walks guides A "London Today" London Walks report – this one's from the front lines of a London Food Bank Profile of a London Walks guide: RSC actor Steve Noonan

A peek under the bonnet. Or, to mix my metaphors, David takes you backstage. This podcast is exactly what it says on the label.

Today, August 1, 2020, was the first day of our, London Walks', comeback. We ran all of a dozen walks. In the circumstances that's a very full programme. Needless to say there weren't many walkers. In several cases there were none. This is my, David's, account of this pretty special day in this plague-ridden year. It's an informal report from the front lines, as it were.

David makes the case for Thackeray Street being "the true high street"of Kensington

Prisons & Palaces & Towers & Moats & Secret Redoubts on a Lost Island David gets to grips with Secret Westminster, its DNA, its creation myth, its insular history and nature... Check out our other Westminster Tours to find out more about what this famous location has to offer.

From the archives – a piece about the London Walks day trips. How they came about.

David does some name dropping... Johnny Depp, HMQ, the Prince of Wales, etc.

You go on a virtual tour of Kensington – the wealthiest borough in London (indeed the wealthiest district in the country) – you best strap yourself in because "Sights & Secrets of Virtual Kensington" takes you through the looking glass: to the Cotswolds and the Egypt of the pharaohs and San Francisco and Docklands and "the Cage" (the second most important interrogation centre of Nazi war crimi...

David sets out the stall for both Kensington tours – the real tour and the Virtual tour.

The oldest urban walking tour company in the world was started by an Australia, Keith Baverstock, back in the 1960s. "Keith was fed up with the banality of typical London tourist fare and so he started walking tours. In its very first incarnation he called it London Unlimited but in no time at all – a couple of months later – he changed the name to London Walks. And it's been London Walks ever sin...

Some Hampstead tapas – its days as a spa town (it rivalled Bath and Tonbridge Wells as the spa in England) and matters literary...

A follow-up to Russell's introduction to his London at War Virtual Tour (yesterday's Podcast). This one is much closer to home. It's the experience – four "incidents" – of Mary's parents during World War II. They both had close calls...

A perfect example of a London Walks guide making the new familiar – and the familiar new.

If this discussion of eternal London were a poker hand it'd be a royal flush. Spades. So, feet up you're in for a good listen. And you're going to learn a whole lot of London – these are good calories.

David's take on the Edith Cavell monument...

The only walk where you get to star in a 1,000-year-old ceremony – a meetup with Kensington's first known residents – they show us round – £10 – £300,000,000 – The Man – a vineyard – 2001 - A Space Odyssey – 200 pigs – the one per cent – the lord –the lady – Roland Schitts – Ok, here it is, David's joined the fray – this is his first podcast – shocking in places – but you'll learn some good stuff